


Working title: Light to Darkness

by McLavellan



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Earth, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Romance, Eventual Romance, M/M, Male Homosexuality
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-19
Updated: 2018-10-19
Packaged: 2019-08-04 08:50:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16343678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/McLavellan/pseuds/McLavellan
Summary: 1912, Dorian Pavus has been born and raised in British India, a scion of the Empire. After disagreements with his family he must leave his beloved India and travel back to the Heart of the Empire. A foggy, rainy, miserable little island the sun rarely touches.





	Working title: Light to Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> So. I'm impatient and also fickle. There might be changes to the chapters even as I write. But this is the first time in a decade I've felt some confidence with what I've written and also the first time in 5 years I've written on an actual computer and not my phone.
> 
> There will be drama. There will be romance. There will be angst. 
> 
> Additional ratings, tags, characters, and pairings will get added as we go. 
> 
> Be warned: there will be violence, smut, and some triggering events. But they WILL be labelled when they come.
> 
> Betaread by the beautiful, marvelous, fantabulous LauraEMoriarty

**The** only thing he ever remembered upon waking up was the darkness and pain. His whole body on fire, crumpled into a small space that smelled of splintered wood and dust. And screaming. Though he was never quite certain if it was his own or not.

He would awake, of course, with the midday sun streaming through the windows, servants fretting that his tutor had grown impatient and beyond the household mayhem, the sound of his beautiful homeland. Colourful birds, elephants, monkeys. Even the Britons who had lived here all their life called them exotic, but Dorian couldn’t imagine a world without such colour and chaos.

“Yes, yes, I’m getting up.”

“Master Sahib, your tutor is not happy,” his elderly Ayah warned him.

“He never is, he’s cursed with that grim expression and I doubt we shall ever see him smile.”

At which, of course, his _Ayah_ at least smiled. “He needs a woman,” she said sagely, “As does young master Sahib.”

He shot her a confused look as a servant pulled his shirt on. “I need no such thing.”

He tried, but could not laugh away her expression. They did this sometimes. She and his mother, along with some of the other servants. Quick glances at his father if he were present, all holding perfectly still as if a snake were rising up to strike and they all wished one of the others would make some small movement that would cause  _ them _ to fall victim. Dorian had never quite understood what they were afraid of. Sometimes, in their eyes, it seemed he himself were the snake.

That feeling seemed to linger with him all through the day, unaided by his tutor’s furious temper. He was a snake too, of a different sort. Perhaps more of a poisonous frog that had crawled out of some murky pond and provided a use to their medicines and potions, but seemed utterly undesirable otherwise. Nobody would touch him, not even with their eyes or their words, outside of the service he provided. Would a woman truly improve him? Dorian supposed there was the idea of tenderness that came with women, but he found enough of that in his friends as they explored the jungles and took up games of cricket and rugby. No, silly to think a woman somehow equated happiness. He saw none in the marriage of his parents. Marriage was simply another task, a duty to the empire, and a distraction to everyone else.

The servants, having been reprimanded for their young master’s lateness in greeting the day, were quiet. It never truly bothered him when they were like this, but it made the days a little duller when he found himself acting like his father just to be noticed. Voice too loud, too serious, too cruel.

“Servants neither want nor need your sympathy,” Halward had explained to his son. “You are their master.”

“Yes, father,” Dorian nodded dutifully, biting down a smile whose twin sat at the lips of a boy by the door. Who was that boy? He barely remembered now, but he’d adored him.

The world felt darker whenever his memory passed by Dorian, but the sun would burst through the sheer curtains, a hopeful breeze making them dance, and Dorian would forget once more. He would attend to his studies as his father commanded, he would play sports with the other boys, their fathers shouting them on, supporting them in a way they rarely did elsewhere. There was pride in those voices, when there wasn’t anger. Competition amongst the men for their sons, superiority tucked away neatly under forced sportsmanship from the sidelines, while their sons laughed, and played, and bled.

“Good show,” the men would say, firmly.

“Bloody idiot, you kicked my shin,” the boys would laugh, clouded in dirt and dust.  

The games had become bloodier as the boys had begun to transition into men. In that strange limbo, rugby seemed to center them. It was a place where boys would be boys. But soon, outside of that sacred space, they were ushered towards girls. Pretty young things in prettier dresses, with pretty little smiles and, in Dorian’s opinion, pretty little lies. He watched as other boys fawned and made fools of themselves, dumbed down their conversation to listen to such charming little tales of girls and flowers and fairies. Dorian had no time for it. And yet, after some great forgotten argument with his father, he found himself directed more and more towards them. In particular, a girl named Livia. She was perfectly dressed, smiled ever so sweetly, spoke only when spoken to. And, then, when chaperoned only by servants, non-people to those of high status, her sharp tongue came out. He rather liked her when she was harsh, but she was not pleased that he never thought to send her flowers, or write, or inquire after her. She received these things of course, but always from his mother claiming it to be on his behalf.

“I won’t be some simple wife for show, you know, Dorian?”

“Oh Livia, really, not you too? Husbands and wives? How absolutely dull.”

“And what, pray tell, do you intend to happen to you?”

“Anything but  _ that _ .”

She huffed and inched herself away from him. “Unfortunately for us, we have no say. We will be wed, I heard them settle it.”

If Dorian was a snake, marriage was most definitely his dreaded mongoose and, for the rest of the day, he was in a foul temper until Felix came by in the evening, as the sun made its way back over the Heart of the Empire on some distant, foggy little island. He’d been spared school in England after the arguments with his father. He couldn’t catch the details, rather like the dream and grinning boy. But it graced him with the opportunity to remain home, like only a few other boys of his station. Among them, Felix was his favourite. Dorian had been sent to study with the young man’s father after the troubled times and while Gereon Alexius was strict, his son was delightfully mischievous and kind. Felix would bring Dorian snacks and talk to him for hours at night. They both loved India more than the grand idea of this so called Great Britain and swore never to leave.

Life, when he was left to his own devices, was truly blessed. With his father away and mother dining with friends, he was the master of the house. He sat on the veranda with Felix, drinking his father's brandy, and bemoaning the course his parents were forcing his life to take. All the while a servant stood by awaiting orders for refills and food and anything else the young master should desire.

“Marriage,” he exclaimed. “Livia and I? A happy little couple. Preposterous. I don't want to marry, I don't fit that image, no matter how father insists on bending me into shape.”

Felix listened, as he always did, offering impartial and practical advice, carefully and calmly as he knew Dorian was prone to drama. He himself would likely never marry. A sickly lad, his future was uncertain, though Dorian promised to follow Alexius Senior into medicine to find some cure for the ailing Felix.

Once it was time for his friend to leave, the servants began to run a bath. In his room, with its plain walls and simple, elegant furniture, a large tub was placed, young men and women rushing back and forth to fill it while he lounged on his bed eating fruit.

“Shall I cut that up, Sahib?” a young man asked. He looked to be about Dorian’s age, strong features and stronger arms.

“No. It’s quite alright.”

His attention had been caught somehow. He found it taking particular note of the servant, of his body, the ease with which he carried the buckets of water. Dorian requested he stay once the bath was full, and undressed himself. It wasn’t a new thing to be naked in the company of servants but he found himself suddenly conscious of it. The night air teasing at his skin. The chap was watching him.

“Shouldn’t you be casting your eyes elsewhere?” Dorian asked, easily, as he stepped into the bath and lowered himself into the hot, scented water.

“Forgive me Sahib, it seemed a greater sin to look away from such beauty.”

“Goodness.The servant can speak poetically. If you really are a servant?” Dorian had been tricked before by his father sending boys to befriend him, to grasp for his secrets and punish him. That grinning boy, had he been a spy? How Dorian had wept when he could not find him.

“Sahib? What is the matter?”

Looking up, Dorian realised he’d been holding himself tense, frowning. He forced a smile and gestured for the servant to bring him his fruit. Though his hand reached out, the fruit was offered directly to his lips and he took it willingly. Not unusual, he told himself, though the pit of his stomach seemed to tighten. He realised he was not, after all, the snake.

“You’re new,” he said, cautiously.

“Yes Sahib. Almost a month. They are letting me serve the household now.”

Dorian smiled. “Lucky us.”

With a shake of his head, the young man corrected him, “Lucky me. I heard stories of the pretty master. But stories do not compare.”

“Are you certain you’re a mere servant? What else did they tell you?”

“That he is proud, and that he is dangerous.”

“Said the spider to the fly. You were out serving my friend and I, weren't you.”

He was washing Dorian now, the hot wet cloth running down his arm to his hand warming the cool skin. There, the servant held it tenderly, cleaning every small crease of his knuckles, every line in his palm. And Dorian could think only of the grinning boy.

“Rilenius,” he said. And the servant simply tilted his head in question. “A boy I knew. Rilenius. Somehow I miss him terribly and yet I only just remembered his name. Such a queer sensation.”

“Would you like to remember my name?” he asked, moving closer, eyes on Dorian’s lips.

Before there could be an answer, footsteps sounded in the hall and the two young men pulled away.

“I will finish alone, thank you,” Dorian breathed. “You are dismissed.”

And that night, as the darkness of his dreams threatened to envelope him, a light shone through. He opened his eyes and figure sneaked closer, blowing the candle out once kneeling at the side of the bed.

“Sahib. I wish to serve.”

“In the middle of the night?”

A soft laugh and then a hand reached out over his. “There are many ways to serve.” Hearing no disagreement, the young man climbed onto the bed, hand moving up from Dorian’s to his shoulder, his face, his cheek. And their lips met.

Dorian had only ever explored his own body and only on nights when he was angry with the rigid rules of their religion. When he thought of the androgynous gods of the natives. Of the boys in his rugby team, of swimming and laughing. Of the grinning boy, Rilenius. Of the temptations that lead to the arguments, to the darkness of his dreams. It was always with anger, with tears, that he searched himself for some feeling of release. And now, with hands discovering him, he felt sick and free all at once, clumsily kissing him again, moaning into his mouth as they pressed together.

And then, as always, his life was interrupted by a scream.

“No, no, no, please!” He pushed the servant off and ran for the door, for his Ayah who loved him, who surely wouldn't let him be punished for this. She couldn't. She loved him as a son.

As his mother should have. The very mother who stood shaken at her door. Who looked heartbroken as the elderly woman cried his crimes to her. That was the last time she ever looked into her son’s eyes. To see his shame and cut it down with her own.

Dorian was contained to his room and the man disappeared just as Rilenius had.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Dun dun DUUUUUUN. What happens next?! 
> 
> I'm in absolute need of love, encouragement, and... Constructive criticism. I can't improve without your help :)
> 
> Now. Once lunchtime hits, I'm having my reward for actually pulling my finger out and writing. I even went over it a few times. Mental.


End file.
